Meet Leah Herring. Leah is a freshman social work major with a minor in Spanish from Prairie Village, Kansas. Leah is a member of Alpha Delta Pi Sorority and is involved with the Honors College. She loves the outdoors and spends most weekends camping or studying in a hammock somewhere around Fayetteville.
Relax– Tell your student to relax too. Adding more stress to the situation will not be productive. Most college students are bound to fail a test at some point, whether it happens in the first semester of a student’s first year, or a week before graduation.
Make a Game Plan– There are a few things your student can do after failing a test. Keep in mind, it is not your responsibility to fix your student’s grade. Do not contact their professor, do not call your student every 20 minutes, and do not pack up your car and drive to Fayetteville to save the day. Your student is an adult and can handle the situation on their own. Ask your student what they will do in the future to boost their grade back up, and then ask how you can help them achieve their goal.
Go to Office Hours– After failing a test, one of the best things your student can do is go into their professor’s office hours and look over the test. It is very helpful to see what questions were missed, and learn from that for future tests. In some classes, one make-up exam is allowed at the end of the semester, so your student might want to ask the professor about that.
Get a Tutor– The U of A has a center called CLASS+ that offers a variety services to students. Your student can meet face-to-face or online with a tutor. CLASS+ also offers something called Supplemental Instruction, or SI, where your student can get extra help in a group setting. More information about CLASS+ can be found here: https://class.uark.edu/
Study– In preparation for the next exam, your student should study. They can meet with somebody from CLASS+ who can give hints on good study habits, or they can form a study group with friends. There are many ways of studying, and it’s important that your student figure out what works best for them.
In the end, the most important thing to remember is that everybody will fail a test or two at some point. College is difficult, and even the best students struggle at some point. Your student will recover from a bad test score.